Essay Sample: Global Warming and Its Causes

Part 1: Topic outline

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Thesis: Global warming is a factor that has recently emerged. It is mainly a reflection of the great rate at which the climate's balance is being affected over the years. The most prominent cause of global warming Is human activities.

Greenhouse gases

Definition of greenhouse gases

Types of greenhouse gases

Effects of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere

Human activities and their impact on global warming

Sources of human-emitted greenhouse gases

Carbon dioxide

Methane

Nitrous oxide

Halocarbons

Demographics

Global warming trends

Global surface air temperature increase

The trend of factors impacting global warming

The earth's climate

Complex factors that modify our climate

The ocean

Geographical location(latitude)

The future

The high rate of industrialisation

Remedies for artificial warming

Global warming

Greenhouse gases

The sun is the primary source of energy for the earth's surface. It radiates heat waves on the earth surface. However, the number of heat rays passing into the atmosphere should be regulated to prevent a cooling effect on the earth's atmosphere. , A layer of gases is spread above it to regulate the number of heat rays passing through the atmosphere. It regulates the number of heat rays passing and absorbs the heat emitted from the earth surface. It later reflects this heat back thereby maintain a balance of temperature within the earth's atmosphere. Examples of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere include carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour and nitrous oxide (Crytzen, 2016). Adding more of greenhouses in the air results in more heat rays being trapped and being emitted back to the earth surface thus creating a heating effect called global warming.

Human activities and their effects on greenhouse gases

The predominant greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide and Halogens. Carbon monoxide has gotten produced through the burning of fuels, production of cement and the intense rate of deforestation (Meinshauen, 2009). Methane has gotten produced in the atmosphere through the use of natural gas. Nitrous oxide has gotten produced via the use of nitrogen-based fertilisers. Halogens such as chlorofluorocarbons have gotten produced through the use of refrigerants and retardants.

Research has shown that the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has increased by an approximate 40% since the revolution of industrialisation.

Other factors affecting climate change

Forms of water have been a great concern over the influence of global warming; this is because water vapour is one of the major greenhouse gases. Higher temperatures from the predominant climate change will lead to the melting of snow and ice in the polar region. Doing this will expose more land that will absorb heat and thus increase the amount of heat released. The melted ice will lead to expanded coverage of water bodies meaning more water vapour introduced into the atmosphere (Shine&Stuber, 2015). Another local factor is the geographical positioning of continents. Some get placed in latitudes whereby they are directly exposed to the sun thus receive a greater heating effect. Water bodies in this regions, in turn, tend to vaporised ore adding to the level of water vapour in the atmosphere.

The future

Based on the scientific analysis and forecasting using the current trend of global warming, the concentrate of greenhouses is set to increase tremendously. An average increase of 2.6 to 4.8 degrees Celsius per century gets projected. Therefore, this means that we will have an era marked with serious health issues and especially those related to the skin. Infrastructure will get rendered obsolete as the heat would cause sold structures to disintegrate (Crytzen, 2016). However, remedies such as the use of electric vehicles, social schemes for the planting of vegetation and the use of industrial effluent control measures are getting introduced. There is hope with advanced research, and if they get put to use, we could well overcome global warming.

Validation of sources

When researching on the topic, I found several sources from both the library and the internet. In narrowing down the list but still I couldn't help but notice that while they were very resourceful, some were more trustworthy than others. The following is an outline of the technique I used to determine the trustworthiness of the sources. I at first took into consideration the currency of the sources. The trustworthy sources not only had updated information and statistics, but they also had consistent links to them. Relevance was the second aspect that I had to consider. Trustworthy sources used a language level that was easily comprehensible, and the demographics used in the sources were academic and scientifically proven. The other aspect I considered is the authority of the source. I considered sources written by qualified publishers. The authors had attached their credentials, and upon verification from the internet, this was true. The publishers had also attached their contact details, and upon verification of the URL, the credentials and previous achievements in the field of study were true. The other aspect that I considered was accuracy. Sources that I considered trustworthy provided information about the topic, and there was a consistent form of referencing through the text. Upon verifying the sources provided from the text, the information given was precise. The language used did not have grammatical errors and did not exhibit any form of plagiarism.

Sources

Abrahamse, A. H. A., Axsen, J., Brown, K., Shwom, R. L., Southerton, D., & Wilhite, H. (2015). Consumption and Climate Change. Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives, 93.

Bennett, R., & Vijaygopal, R. (2018). Consumer attitudes towards electric vehicles: Effects of product user stereotypes and self-image congruence. European Journal of Marketing.

References

Crutzen, P. J., Mosier, A. R., Smith, K. A., & Winiwarter, W. (2016). N 2 O release from agro-biofuel production negates global warming reduction by replacing fossil fuels. In Paul J. Crutzen: A pioneer on atmospheric chemistry and climate change in the anthropocene (pp. 227-238). Springer, Cham.

Meinshausen, M., Meinshausen, N., Hare, W., Raper, S. C., Frieler, K., Knutti, R., ... & Allen, M. R. (2009). Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 C. Nature, 458(7242), 1158.

Shine, K. P., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Hailemariam, K., & Stuber, N. (2015). Alternatives to the global warming potential for comparing climate impacts of emissions of greenhouse gases. Climatic Change, 68(3), 281-302.

Trenberth, K. E., Dai, A., Van Der Schrier, G., Jones, P. D., Barichivich, J., Briffa, K. R., & Sheffield, J. (2014). Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change, 4(1), 17.